“Walter, no more riddles. Tell me how this went down. Tell me from the start.”
“From the start?”
“From the start.”
Elliot chuckled at the thought of it and poured himself a glass of wine without first tasting from the bottle. A waiter swooped in to take over the operation but Elliot waved him away with the bottle.
“This is a long story, Mickey. Would you like a glass of wine to go with it?”
He held the mouth of the bottle poised over my empty glass. I was tempted but I shook my head.
“No, Walter, I don’t drink.”
“I’m not sure I can trust someone who doesn’t take a drink from time to time.”
“I’m your lawyer. You can trust me.”
“I trusted the last one, too, and look what happened to him.”
“Don’t threaten me, Walter. Just tell me the story.”
He drank heavily from his wineglass and then put it down too hard on the table. He looked around to see if anyone in the restaurant had noticed and I got the sense that it was all an act. He was really checking to see if we were being watched. I scanned the angles I had without being obvious. I didn’t see Bosch or anyone else I pegged as a cop in the restaurant.
Elliot began his story.
“When you come to Hollywood, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from as long as you’ve got one thing in your pocket.”
“Money.”
“That’s right. I came here twenty-five years ago and I had money. I put it in a couple of movies first and then into a half-assed studio nobody gave two shits about. And I built that place into a contender. Another five years and it will no longer be the Big Four they talk about. It will be the Big Five. Archway will be right up there with Paramount and Warner’s and the rest.”
I wasn’t anticipating going back twenty-five years when I told him to start the story from the beginning.
“Okay, Walter, I get all of that about your success. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it wasn’t my money. When I came here, it wasn’t my money.”
“I thought the story was that you came from a family that owned a phosphate mine or shipping operation in Florida.”
He nodded emphatically.
“All true, but it depends on your definition of family.”
It slowly came to me.
“Are you talking about the mob, Walter?”
“I am talking about an organization in Florida with a tremendous cash flow that needed legitimate businesses to move it through and legitimate front men to operate those businesses. I was an accountant. I was one of those men.”
It was easy to put together. Florida twenty-five years ago. The heyday of the uninhibited flow of cocaine and money.
“I was sent west,” Elliot said. “I had a story and I had suitcases full of money. And I loved movies. I knew how to pick ’em and put ’ em together. I took Archway and turned it into a billion-dollar enterprise. And then my wife…”
A sad look of regret crossed his face.
“What, Walter?”
He shook his head.
“On the morning after our twelfth anniversary – after the prenuptial agreement was vested – she told me she was leaving. She was going to get a divorce.”
I nodded. I understood. With the prenup vested, Mitzi Elliot would be entitled to half of Walter Elliot’s holdings in Archway Studios. Only he was just a front. His holdings actually belonged to the organization and it wasn’t the type of organization that would allow half of its investment to walk out the door in a skirt.
“I tried to change her mind,” Elliot said. “She wouldn’t listen. She was in love with that Nazi bastard and thought he could protect her.”
“The organization had her killed.”
It sounded so strange to say those words out loud. It made me look around and sweep my eyes across the restaurant.
“I wasn’t supposed to be there that day,” Elliot said. “I was told to stay away, to make sure I had a rock-solid alibi.”
“Why’d you go, then?”
His eyes held on mine before he answered.
“I still loved her in some way. Somehow I still did and I wanted her. I wanted to fight for her. I went out there to try to stop it, maybe be the hero, save the day and win her back. I don’t know. I didn’t have a plan. I just didn’t want it to happen. So I went out there… but I was too late. They were both dead when I got there. Terrible…”
Elliot was staring at the memory, perhaps the scene in the bedroom in Malibu. I dropped my eyes down to the white tablecloth in front of me. A defense attorney never expects his client to tell him the whole truth. Parts of the truth, yes. But never the cold, hard and complete truth. I had to think that there were things Elliot had left out. But what he had told me was enough for now. It was time to talk about the bribe.
“And then came Jerry Vincent,” I prompted.
His eyes came back into focus and he looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about the bribe.”
